H.B. cracks down on suspected illegal massage parlors

May 8, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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A possible victim of human trafficking who worked at an illegal massage parlor awaits transportation in a police vehicle during a crackdown in Garden Grove in 2009. Huntington Beach police on May 3 launched an investigation into 20 massage parlors suspected of illicit activities. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A possible victim of human trafficking who worked at an illegal massage parlor awaits transportation in a police vehicle during a crackdown in Garden Grove in 2009. Huntington Beach police on May 3 launched an investigation into 20 massage parlors suspected of illicit activities. H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH Officials involved in a sweep of 20 massage parlors as part of an ongoing effort to investigate businesses suspected of harboring prostitution and human trafficking operations found 71 violations, according to a report.

Huntington Beach police partnered with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, the fire department, building and safety and code enforcement on May 3 to check into the massage parlors, police reported. Investigators found 49 municipal code violations and 22 building code violations, which could mean some of the businesses will have to shut down until they are brought up to code, police reported.

Violations included employees performing massages with the customer's genitalia exposed, unlicensed massage technicians and some businesses operating without a license, according to the report by Police Chief Kenneth Small.

Police started the investigations after a huge increase in the number of these businesses in the city and complaints about some of the parlors, officials reported.

Huntington Beach has seen a 500 percent increase in the number of massage parlors cropping up in the city since the state started to oversee the operations.

"In 2009, the State of California enacted legislation implementing statewide oversight of massage parlors and the issuance of massage technician licenses," Small wrote. "That action essentially meant that Huntington Beach was no longer able to regulate these businesses as we had in the past."

The city currently has more than 60 massage parlors and many of the new businesses are not the legitimate kind, police said.

Members of the Human Trafficking Task Force were on scene at the May 3 sweep to help identify possible victims of human trafficking.

Sometimes women at these massage parlors are forced into prostitution as payment for their entry into the United States, Small wrote.

"Many of the employees at the massage parlors are female immigrants, which leads to concerns of possible human trafficking," Small wrote. "While being questioned by detectives, some of the female employees admitted to performing acts of prostitution at the massage businesses where they were working."

The businesses will receive a follow-up investigation at a later date. Prior to this effort, police had performed a series of undercover investigations that turned out five arrests of women from three different places for sexual-related crimes.

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